In 1983, Rauf was asked to lead prayers at a small mosque in lower Manhattan, 12 blocks from the World Trade Center site and near the Park51 project. The mosque, Masjid al-Farah, was created by a Sufi order called Nur Ashki Jerrahi, currently led by a woman, which means the order of light and love. Sufism is a mystical tradition that emphasizes a direct and personal experience of God through chanting and other acts of devotion, and is known for adapting to local culture.
[ http://www.allaboutreligion.org/sufism.htm – The author of the article has failed to note that the proposed “Ground Zero Mosque ” has nothing to do with the Sufi Sect. There are no Islamic states which regard themselves as officially Sufi. Sufism is characterized by the veneration of local saints and by brotherhoods that practice their own rituals. Sufis organize themselves into “orders” or groups, called Tariqas. These groups are headed by a leader called a Shaykh who is considered the most spiritual man with the most Taqwa among them. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/intro/islam-sufi.htm]
Rauf is especially popular among young, urban professionals.
[ http://www.amnesty.name/en/news-and-updates/heavy-sentences-against-jailed-iranian-baha%E2%80%99i-religious-minority-leaders-condemned– ]

CRIME: Adultery SENTENCE: Beheading
Author Asra Nomani said she once attended a retreat organized by Rauf and Khan, and noted that Rauf allowed parallel prayer sections for men and women — a rare practice. In the majority of mosques, women sit behind men, shielded by a room divider.
“Imam Feisal, he has always been on a moderate course — many of us would call it a liberal-progressive course,” said Saleemah Abdul, 36, who works for the United Nations and is editor of a book on American Muslim women. “He has promoted women’s leadership, youth leadership in a time and a place where many Muslims felt isolated and alienated.”
[Liberal-Progressive? Is this what she means by Liberal-Progressive behavior? Parallel prayer sections? Wouldn’t a “Liberal-Progressive” publicly acknowledge a universal right to freedom of religion, that all men and woman are created equally and that all people are made in the image of God; Muslim, Jew – Hindu – Anamist and Christian, believer and non-believer alike, and that equal rights between the sexs are God given, not a creation of man. Wouldn’t a “Liberal-Progessive” call upon all world leaders to acknowledge the same, specifically, that the leaders in Muslim lands recognize these basic rights of all mankind. If this is not so than how can Islam be “inherently compatible with American life”. Tell me do good “Liberal -Progressive Muslim’s” deny and defend genocide these days? Liberal – Progressive Islam with it’s “parallel prayer sections” for men and women and it’s “parellel systems of justice” for believer and non-believer …]
Rauf helped to establish the American Society for Muslim Advancement and the Cordoba Initiative, two organizations with missions to build dialogue between Muslims and the West.
[See the links above and the Imam’s actual letters from the Cordoba Initiative to the American Muslim Magazine, concerning what one might think is, based upon the Imam’s letters, a “genocide-less” Dafur].
His travels have been financed partly by the U.S. government, which has been sending him on diplomatic trips to

Public Executions Followed Protest of Iranian Election 2010
Muslim nations since the Bush administration. Contributions to his nonprofit organizations have come from American groups like the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Ford Foundation, government agencies in Qatar and the Netherlands, and the Kingdom Foundation, a philanthropy affiliated with Saudi prince Alwaleed bin Talal, the largest shareholder in Citigroup.
After the Sept. 11 attacks, Rauf was called on repeatedly by news organizations to help explain to Americans why the U.S. was so hated by some factions in the Muslim world.
[Can he now explain to us why the “Muslim’s Factions” are so hated in Dafur today? Can the Imam explain the Muslim world’s replusion to the freedom of religion, revulsion to freedom of speech, freedom of expression and equality of the sexes and how this revulsion lies at the root of Islam’s replusion to all that is “inherently compatible with American life “ ]
Some of his comments then have now been seized on by critics as evidence of anti-American views.

Iraqi Army Invades Kuwait
“We tend to forget, in the West, that the United States has more Muslim blood on its hands than al Qaida has on its hands of innocent non-Muslims, he said in a 2005 lecture in Australia. “You may remember that the U.S.-led sanction against Iraq led to the death of over half a million Iraqi children. This has been documented by the United Nations.”
[What a strange analogy for a “Liberal/Progressive”; Is he refering to the sanctions approved by 114 member countries of the United Nations, sanctions that were put in place after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and the Regime of Suddam Hussien’s continued “human rights violations”,”acts of genocide’ and “crimes against humanity”, the acts that ultimately led to the conviction and execution of Hussein by the Iraqi people … http://www1.american.edu/TED/iraqsanc.htm
Has the Imam been asked his opinion about the execution of Saddam Hussien? Were the Iraqi people justified in their actions? Was the execution a “just act” under Muslim Law as he understands it?
Given this statement by the Imam and the Imam’s failure to condemn HAMAS, shouldn’t the MSM ask the Imam his

Mass Funeral Victims Hussein's Poison Gas Attack
opinion of the current sanctions against Iran? To specifically ask the Imam his opinion … will the sanctions against Iran provide justification for the Imam to one day compare the terrorist activities of a rogue group of militant extremists to the unified actions taken by the United Nations against Iran? Could the Iranian sanctions serve to justify some other terrorist attack in the Imam’s mind? A Liberal? A Progressive?]
Rauf told an interviewer in July that about a decade ago he envisioned a global association of Muslim community centers modeled after the Young Men’s Christian Association, serving as centers of interfaith dialogue and spreading moderate Islam worldwide.
The first of these Cordoba Houses, as he initially referred to them, would be established in New York City.
[The quetion that begs to be asked is this, “and is it your intent that these Centers replace the YMCA’s, that your “Centers” will act to the exclusion or explusion of YMCA’s throughout the world as Mosques have acted to forcibly replace Synagogues, Churches and Temples throughout the Muslim world? Is your goal, first and foremost, not interfaith dialogue but to spread Islam?]

Iraqi Troops Arrive in Halabja After Gas Attack - 5000 Murdered
“Our stated objective is to establish this as a launching point, as a headquarters if you want, of a global understanding, of a moderate Islam that is true to its fundamental principles,” He told the New York-based Intersections International, a group that has endorsed the Islamic center.
[Coincidentally, this is the same group that employed Michael Enright the man who slashed New York City Taxi Driver Ahmed H Shari.
What did the Imam just say? Did the Imam just say the “Mosque would serve as a headquarters for the launching point of an Islam that is true to its fundamentalist principles”?. I, for one, believe he did … I for one, want a clear definition of the Imam’s “moderate Islam”, especially a “moderate Islam … true to it’s fundamentalist principles’ …]
“And to accuse us as being the opposite of that flies in the face off our stated vision, our mission, my track record and everything I’ve ever done or stood for.”
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2010/08/28/imam_behind_nyc_mosque_faces_divisions_over_center/?page=1
Twelve Questions For Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf
1). Will you acknowledge the genocide in Dafur?
2). Do you acknowledge the charges of “War Crimes” brought by the United Nations International Criminal Court against the regime in the Sudan?
3). Will you condemn the genocide in Dafur?
4). Do you, as an individual, recognize an international right, an unalienable right, of all people throughout the world to worship or not worship, as they choose, without fear of harm, an international right to freedom of religion for all people?
5). Do you call upon all leaders, in all lands and of all faiths to recognize this right?
6). Will you call upon the civil, religious and most importantly, the theocratic leaders throughout the world to reopen the places of worship that they may have closed or may have been closed by their predecessors, within their lands and to permit the free and unencumbered exercise of the religion of choice by all people in all lands? If not, please explain how your position ”is inherently compatible with American life”?7). Will you acknowledge a universal right of equality between the sexes and call for an end to the “crimes against humanity” being committed in Dafur, Sudan? Will you call for an end to the barbaric and sexist practices of mutilating, stoning and beheading of women, whenever these actions might be occurring throughout the world? If you refuse to condemn these actions will you explain how these actions are “inherently compatible with American life”?
8). Will you call for an immediate end to the barbaric practice of executing individuals because of their sexual orientation and for an end to the equally barbaric practice of drugging and raping virgin’s prior to their execution. (“Members of Iran’s feared Basij militia forcibly marry female virgin prisoners the night before scheduled executions, raping their new “wives” and making it religiously acceptable to execute them, a self-professed member of the paramilitary group says… ” – http://www.news.com.au/iran-virgin-prisoners-raped-for-legal-executions/story-0-1225752873650 ; Google “Virgin Rape Iran” for a long list of articles condemning this barbaric practice )
9). You have refused to acknowledge or condemn HAMAS as a terrorist organization. The Charter of HAMAS states that, “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it”. http://www.mideastweb.org/hamas.htm
Absent a general condemnation of HAMAS, will you as an Iman and a purported “Liberal/Progressive Muslim American leader”, denounce and condemn this specific component of the HAMAS charter, that your faith, Islam, has the right to ”obliterate” any other People, Race, Religion or Country? Certainly, you must be willing to condemn the basic “concept” that any faith, be it “Islam” or any other faith or religion, has a right to “obliterate” any other faith, people, religion or Country … the Imam does recognize, doesn’t he, that such a concept is not “inherently compatible with American life”.
10). Will you specifically acknowledge that those individuals who choose not to believe in the “One True God” and choose to pursue forms of worship such as; Animism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism or those who choose not to pursue any religion at all, should be left to their personal freedom of expression, whatever it might be and that these individuals should never be put in fear of their life because of the choice they make and will you condemn those who will not acknowledge this universal right?
11). Was the execution of Saddam Hussein for “crimes against humanity” a just and acceptable action under Islamic Law as you understand that law?
12). You have expressed an unusual position on the United Nations sanctions against Iraq; using those sanctions to justify the attack on innocent civilians in the WTC on 911 because of the “blood on American hands” that you associate with the United Nation’s Iraqi sanctions.
The United Nations has recently initiated a host of sanctions against Iran. Will those sanctions serve as a justification in your mind if other attacks are launched by extremist Islamic Militants against innocent American civilians?

Preparations are almost complete ... Gather the stones